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Re: How long can you wear contacts for

Posted: Tue 17 Jan 2012 6:59 pm
by danny gas perm
i have worn rgp for up to 12 hours some days are better than others. sometimes stinging occurs. i have been told by moorfields thta continual wear does push back the cornea. When i have gone back to glasses my vision is netter for a few hours after.

Re: How long can you wear contacts for

Posted: Wed 18 Jan 2012 9:11 am
by longhoc
Hi Danny

Yes, that's right, the staff at Moorfields told you correctly. RGP lens wear does change the cornea shape. The effect is twofold. One aspect is a fairly major but short term effect which can cause your cornea to have a markedly different profile for a few hours after you take your lenses out. This is why you get better vision with glasses for a little while after you remove the lenses. Unfortunately this more significant change wears off as you've found ! There's also some more subtle but longer term changes to your cornea when you've worn RGPs regularly for a long while. These aren't usually too profound optically, but they take a fair while to dissipate especially if you've worn your lenses day in, day out, for years. This is why changing to a different RGP design -- or a different lens type -- takes some getting used to.

12 hours wear time is really go going ! As you say, you have good eye days and bad eye days. Are you overall happy with your RGPs ? They do sometimes get a bit of a bad rap for being uncomfortable, but I found especially in the early years of my Keratoconus that they did the job and I was getting pretty good vision.

Oh, and welcome to the forum by the way. Do please let us know if you'd like to receive any of our literature.

Kind regards

Chris

Re: How long can you wear contacts for

Posted: Mon 21 May 2012 9:20 pm
by jay87
I wear my Corneal RGP lenses up to 16 hours from 7am til 11pm, cas that's how long I am awake :D They used to make my eyes dry and itch and sting and fall out though so stick at it, does get better!

Re: How long can you wear contacts for

Posted: Tue 22 May 2012 6:34 am
by GarethB
When I first had to go back to RGP's in 2004 which was 14 years after my first graft I could manage 12 hours max but if I wore them for a whole week, I would eventually get a bad eye day where lens wear was impossible and I could be in eye casualty. By 2008, this was down to 2 hours on a good day, but usually 1 hour but only for 5 days per week max and still every so often I would be in eye casualty but have regular monthly appointments.

Now I am on soft lenses for KC since late 2008 and have yet to find a lens wear limit, the longest I have worn them is for 21 hours for 5 consecutive days while travelling for work and these lenses have given me a new lease of life. They did take getting used to as the RGP lenses had pushed the cone flat on my right eye and drawn the cone out on my left eye, and as posted earlier in thsi thread, this concerns me as stress is being put on an already damaged cornea and for me it was 12 - 18 months for the cornea to settle in its natural keratoconic post graft state. I have also spoken with many people on this forum and and contact lens manufacturer workshops and patients have reported that RGP's have resulted in them having corneal scaring due to RGP lens fit.

Bottom line is that we are all different and a lens that works for one person is completly inappropriate for another but the only way you really know for sure is to try it.